Emma Wallbanks: As Other, Original Unknown
As part of the Moving Image Programme, CoCA presents new work from Emma Wallbanks.
Image courtesy of the artist
26.01.19
17.03.19
An unscripted double stream film project: rhythmically composed from original and outsourced content, with a particular interest in the slide film medium.
A willful contradiction between tangible memories and the representation of images that are carried around internally. Wallbanks’ film essay draws a relation between language, image and histories, as an unfixed enquiry.
Offering a dual interplay between abstraction and representation with a rebellious sensibility, the work often encourages pixilation over detail- cropping and jutting information as a metaphorical depiction rather than a factual one. The works are grounded in something known, something remembered and relatable- yet they are abstracted from anything concrete. It is in this sense that they allude to a nonlinear, nonconfined or chronicled photographic history- that instead offers a reading that responds to something emotively muffled and at times bizarre.
The Artist
Emma Wallbanks is a New Zealand multidisciplinary feminist artist currently based in Lyttelton. With a rebellious sensibility Wallbanks’ work often encourages pixilation over detail- cropping and jutting information as a metaphorical depiction rather than a factual one. Her practice doesn’t discern between borrowed and original content, a strategy she employs as a means to question agency and malleability. The works are grounded in something known, something remembered and relatable- yet they are abstracted from anything concrete. Wallbanks often correlates dual themes traditionally associated with the body. Her work alludes to a nonlinear, nonconfined or chronicled feminist history- offerings that are instead emotive, personally muffled and at times a bizarre challenge.